Broadway, as the name implies, is a wide avenue in New York City, and is the oldest north-south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to the first New Amsterdam settlement. The name Broadway is an English translation of the Dutch name, Breede weg. The street is famous as the pinnacle of the American theater industry.Broadway originated as an Indian trail developed carved into the Manhattan brush land called the Wickquasgeck Trail. This trail originally snaked through the swamps and rocks from southern to northern Manhattan. Upon the arrival of the Dutch, the trail soon became the main road through the island from New Amsterdam at the southern tip.

The Dutch explorer and entrepreneur David de Vries gives the first mention of it in his journal for the year 1642 — "the Wickquasgeck Road over which the Indians passed daily".Broadway runs the length of Manhattan, being the only street running from almost the southern tip of the island, where it starts at Bowling Green, to the northern tip. It crosses the Harlem River as the Broadway Bridge and continues through the Bronx and into Westchester County. (There are other streets called "Broadway" in the city, one each in the New York City Boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Short isolated stretches of streets use its name, such as East Broadway, West Broadway, and Old Broadway.)